In the manufacture of semiconductor devices involving the bonding of semiconductor chips to lead frames, a technique of using gold-plated lead frames or pieces of gold tape to form Au—Si eutectic was effective in the past because of its high reliability, but has been replaced by the use of conductive pastes for economical and other reasons. Most conductive pastes used contain metal powder such as silver in organic resins as a binder. In conjunction with the recent tendency of increasing the size of semiconductor chips or elevating the solder reflow temperature, an improvement in reliability of conductive pastes becomes important. In order to obtain a conductive paste having a low volume resistivity, an organic resin as a binder must be filled with a large proportion of conductive powder, which can considerably affect the advantages of the binder resin including low modulus, good adherence, mechanical properties, and ease of working.